The Three-Cornered Hat

Alarcón, Pedro Antonio de, 1833-1891Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 171K words
Chapters: 18

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Der Dreispitz by Pedro Antonio de AlarcónAuthor: Alarcón, Pedro Antonio de, 1833-1891,Language: German, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Oct 14, 2015

Editor's review

The Three-Cornered Hat is a fine novella by the Spanish writer Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, here in a German translation from Project Gutenberg. The story turns on a three-cornered hat that sets off a misunderstanding and a chain of consequences, using light comic strokes to depict the entanglements among a local magistrate, a miller and his wife, and rumors of flirtation. It is tightly structured, with lively dialogue and a strong flavor of Spanish folk narrative. Alarcón preserves human warmth within worldly satire, teasing the vanity of the powerful while showing kindly regard for ordinary people's lives. The German translation suits readers with some German who want to experience the rhythm of a nineteenth-century Spanish story rendered into German. Readers need not seek deep social criticism but should enjoy the ingenuity of the plotting and the comic timing: how misunderstandings pile up and how they are resolved at the end. As a public-domain eBook, it is short and works as a light sample for German extensive reading or comparative literature.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Learners with some German who want to try literary extensive reading
Readers who enjoy Spanish literature and folk comedy
Readers interested in misunderstanding-driven plots and short narrative forms
Those who need a short public-domain German text for their reading plan

Not a good fit for

Readers with no German at all who cannot read with a dictionary
Readers expecting a long epic or heavy social critique
Readers who only read Chinese translations and are unused to reading in a foreign language

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the main line of misunderstanding, then go back to key dialogue for its satire.
Track the three-cornered hat as a plot device and sort out each turn it triggers.
Mark German vocabulary without looking it up first, then deal with it after each section.
Compare with background material on the Spanish original to understand the story's regional and period atmosphere.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can I read this book without any German?

This is a German translation, and reading it with no German at all would be very hard. It is best to have at least intermediate German reading ability, or first read a Chinese or Spanish version to understand the story, then return to the German edition to enjoy the language and dialogue.

What are the main attractions of this story?

The main attraction is the chain of misunderstandings set off by a three-cornered hat, and the folk-wisdom maneuvering among the magistrate, the miller, and his wife. Alarcón uses light comedy to satirize vanity and power, with tight plotting and lively dialogue—good for readers who enjoy short narrative craft.

Is this book long, and what reading pace suits it?

It is a novella, not long, and suits reading in two or three sessions. Read the first time for plot, the second for the satire in the dialogue and the characters' postures. As a public-domain eBook, it also works for reading in segments on a commute or before bed.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Alarcón, Pedro Antonio de, 1833-1891 Author

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (1833–1891) was a Spanish novelist; public information about his life and education is limited. The library holds six of his works, including El sombrero de tres picos, El Capitán Veneno, Viajes por España, and the short-story collection Novelas Cortas, as well as a translation such as Der Dreispitz. His writing often draws on Spanish folk life and local customs, with a humorous, lively tone, tight plotting, and a light narrative touch that brings out character and regional color; El sombrero de tres picos, for instance, turns on a misunderstanding involving a miller, his wife, and local officials, and is rich in comic effect. His works are classified in the library under inspirational and personal growth, and some of his short stories and travel writings also reflect observations of social reality.